And Then There Was One

What happens when two (of three) fly the homeschool nest?

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We’re in that strange part of summer where, when your kids are at different schools or in different “systems” (or not in “the system” at all) some have started back and some haven’t. Some will never exactly, technically “start.”¹ Not to mention the year-rounders or the after-Labor-Day-ers, but those are few and far between around here.

In our house, this looks like the bigs off to school next Monday, some of their friends back more than a week ago, and their little brother sat down with me just this Monday to start his fifth year of school at home. After four years of things going the way we never expected, they’re now taking another unexpected turn, making life around here just a little weird right now.

Weird like me sitting in the tutorial drop-off line, yesterday, holding back tears behind my sunglasses while the little walked in alone and Lauren Daigle sang her guts out reminding me I’m strong and held, which I needed because I believe it but also am really needing to believe it, you know what I’m saying?

He’s fine, I know. It’s his fourth school year at this tutorial. He knows the teachers, the routines, the friends. But it’s his first year without them.

He’s feeling it. I’m feeling it. And they’re feeling it, too.

On Monday, I woke up and thought, “Wouldn’t it be interesting to chronicle this new first day together, A Day in the Life style, except an in-between version because things are still very much in-progress?” So here you have it:

Our First Day of School

• 6:55am — I wakeup on my own a whole hour and a half later than I’d planned, because who would I be if I haven’t mapped out my ideal day, already? The thing is, we lingered a bit longer at community group last night and then took a bit to wind down for the evening, so bedtime came later. And like I have for all of the last four years of teaching, I prioritize my sleep over most other forms of self-care.

• 7:20am — I check the weather and see that it’s 63°, everyone is still asleep, and I head out for a walk. Alone. I briefly contemplate bringing Jasper, but I need this time to myself. I dream of three blissful miles, but have time for only little more than one and instead of taking my usual loop around the lake I haunt the tree-lined streets and creeks, soaking in the cool breeze.

• 7:45am — I’m home and let the dog out, feed and water him, drink my own water and supplements, make the bed, start a load of laundry, and get going on a huge batch of Kodiak Cakes, many of which I’ll freeze for future protein-rich quick weekday breakfasts.

• 8:00am — Both boys come down squinty-eyed and sleepy, but excited for our traditional first day of school pancakes. They start eating what’s ready and so does Cliff, who fixes coffee and is off to work.

• 8:30am — Thirty pancakes later, the kitchen is (mostly) clean, and I sit down to the table to eat where the little has already started typing lessons. He finishes three lessons while I finish breakfast and then get up to switch the wash to the dryer.

• 9:00am — We settle in for math, working on writing and reading numbers in the 10,000s place value. I remember how thankful I am for such a colorful, engaging curriculum but it feels so strange to just do this with one kid. Though I will say, the more independent lessons that started in fourth grade made for less “together work” as we call it, so it’s not wildly different… yet.

• 9:30am — We take a break for him to get out of pjs, into real clothes, and then we shoot some hoops in the backyard while playing with the dog. The middle is reading in his room, and we decide to move school to the back porch, because this weather is glorious.

It’s about this time I start to feel a pang that I know will eventually just ache. This is the beauty of what we’ve been doing the last few years, and I feel the space where two more bodies have been. The connections. The freedom to go outside, to start and to stop and to start again.

• 9:50am — We start language arts. In order to keep up with four lessons a week at home, despite two days of tutorial where he doesn’t work on language arts specifically, and still have lighter, enrichment-rich Fridays, we’ve always done two lessons of LA on Mondays and Wednesdays. He very much does not remember this and is not happy about it, acts as though we’re discussing subjects and spelling rules in Russian.

• 9:55am — The oldest finally wakes and asks for her pancakes and the middle comes outside to hang out with us. I mean, THIS WEATHER.

• 10:15am — The wheels are coming off, with everyone but me getting cranky and I don’t feel far behind. The work is “too much” and the distractions are mounting.

Suddenly I don’t feel so achy. In fact, I’m baffled that in the last year or two, our school days would only have just gotten started at 10am (after prioritizing time for me to get anything done besides school, like general administrative tasks, chores, staring at walls alone, workouts, etc) and that is after much cajoling. Then I’d be in this tricky space for another handful of hours, juggling varied interests, distractions, motivations, and energy levels.

• 10:40am — We finish language arts and now it’s time for Duolingo (Spanish, today) and some handwriting pages with a side of the GooGoo cluster I promised he could have after core work was done. “FINALLY!” he says.

• 10:45am — I freeze the pancakes, finally take my last morning vitamin, and fix myself a decaf cold brew. I check on our oldest who’s dutifully working on her summer reading assignment due on the first day of school that she found out, only three weeks ago, she got a spot for. She’s a trooper, I tell you. The middle is lamenting summer boredom and not enough batteries to fix his nerf gun.

• 11:00am — I clean out my inbox after a few days off email, work on a grocery list, and fill waters for basketball camp this afternoon for the bigs while the little reads a short devotional to himself and begs to make a pinecone bird feeder he reads about. I ask him if we can wait until later this afternoon.

• 11:45am — We leave to take the bigs to camp led by the varsity girls head coach at their new school. Hayden helps me wipe off acrylic paint labels I put on the middle’s binders already in his “locker” and slip in paper ones I printed at home. I peek my head in a few classrooms and take a minute to just feel it. Whisper words of thanks and petition.

• 12:15pm — I hit the grocery store with the little, our first taste of these open afternoons, just the two of us. I do this instead of my usual grocery pickup because I think, this is good for us! Economics! Commerce! Interacting with people!

• 12:50pm — I might have groceries, now, but I’m starving and my kid’s icing me out because I asked him to stop pushing the cart, with him inside, off the shelf walls into the middle of the aisle. He won’t speak to me, but he does help bring groceries inside, so that’s something.

By this point, anything the other two would have done or said might have distracted him by now and he’d be over it. But they’re not here. It’s been over four years since this guy and I will have had the amount of time, just the two of us, we’ll get this year. He was in preschool in the bigs’ public elementary school for three hours a day, four days a week when school let out for good in March 2020. I know these kids better than I ever have, and yet, I’ve got a lot to learn about who they are on their own.

• 1:00pm — Groceries are put away and we fix lunch in the quiet. I make gentle gestures to help thaw things out, including suggesting lunch on the back porch. He joins me there, where he finally opens up. I tell him he’s allowed to be upset that I stopped him from having what he thought was fun, but what I thought might be a little inconvenient and unsafe for our fellow shoppers. Eventually, we get onto the topic of pickles and how they’re made.

• 1:30pm — He’s posted at the kitchen counter taking his voice lesson and I sprawl out on my bedroom floor for a little while to reply to texts I haven’t gotten to today. I remember to turn back on my “school focus” hours on Screen Time because instead of feeling bad I haven’t gotten back to people, I won’t even know I’ve missed anything until those hours are up.

• 2:00pm — We shoot his first day of school pictures on the front porch and then play a round of MarioKart on the Switch. For the first time ever, he beats me and utterly revels in his victory.

  

  Trying to preserve the kids’ privacy, but THAT SMILE!

• 2:15 — We make the pinecone birdfeeder he requested earlier, hang it on the cherry tree out back, and I bite my tongue about the peanut butter melting in the now-rising temps. He can’t wait to show the bigs when they get home.

I’m enjoying the singular focus of having a moment to do something he wants without worrying that it’s taking from anything else. But I recognize I’ve not tried to do much else except a few chores and the like. It’s not always like this. There’s been no writing, no personal creative work, and I’m curious to see how we’ll carve out time to have space for our independent creative work in the future.

• 2:30 — He plays with a neighbor buddy (who is homeschooling this year!) on his trampoline while I fold laundry and catch up on Marco Polo messages from friends who, like me, are just trying to survive these strange weeks.

• 3pm — We pick the bigs up from camp and they come home starving and happy but exhausted. I get a better idea of life starting next Monday. Having only snacked between pancakes and camp, they fix themselves late, light lunches and do their chores. The middle takes his turn playing with the neighbor friend and the bookends play legos together. The band is back-ish together, again.

“We can do this, right?” I wonder to myself.

Today, we dropped the bigs off at back to school camp for a couple of days, and it’s just him and I again, making the most of everything we’ve learned to love about homeschooling, but learning how to do it with half as many people around.

I’m not surprised that in the course of a couple of days, I’ve managed to experience every facet of emotion surrounding this new path. But the same can be true of where I sat just four years ago, a couple of weeks into flying by the seat of my pants and questioning all my plans and reckoning with my limited view of things. That’s never changed once, in the years since. It may never, at this point.

I know our feelings will continue to wax and wane over time: the moments of missing, relief, gladness, frustration, and more. Things will eventually settle into a new normal (perhaps near that six-week mark I remember Shauna Niequist referencing years ago that completely changed my understanding of every transition ever), but it’s hard to know what that will look like.

Though I am, I should add, hopeful.

All that to say, I don’t yet know the answer to my own question.

What happens when two (of three) fly the homeschool nest?

But I’m determined to pay attention, to remain curious, and to stay connected while we figure it out — because what else have we to do?

Thanks for reading,

1. Unschoolers are the Wild Wild West of the homeschool world, and I’ve got deep respect for their commitment to interest-based learning and going with the flow. That, I’ve learned, will never be me, and knowing that about myself has made this journey all that much easier to navigate.